just watched David Cassidy's last interview with Dr Phil. It was extremely sad. I feel very strongly that David Cassidy who died of dementia had pernicious anemia along with his mother and his grandfather. I'm wondering I don't know if I'm allowed to post this link but I would love for people to watch this video and tell me what they think. Also he has two children that are subject to his same illness and they should be warned. Because everybody's blaming David Cassidy's behavior on his alcoholism when I bhadelieve he had PA.
he had pain in his hands from arthritis and he had foot surgery and he had back surgery he has all The Tell-Tale signs of advanced pernicious anemia. This is the video that I watched if I'm not allowed to post it please remove it. I wonder if perhaps he had pernicious anemia and if his children are told that ,they could clear his name from what people think was the end of his life and that he was drunk at the end of his life when he really wasn't. Which could be this pedestal for us to get the word out there about pernicious anemia
Right exactly. Plus any drugs he might have done. But also his mother died from dementia and so did his mother's father. So something was running in the family as well. I just think it's sad that his legacy is going to be that he drank himself to death. I don't know, some people drink because they have pernicious anemia and don't know it and some people have pernicious anemia because they drink. It would just be interesting to find out if he did so that his legacy wasn't tarnished by that and so that people understood he wasn't crazy.
I believe that B12 deficiency rarely has one route. It's often a combination of factors that can lead to becoming deficient.
It is so complicated that I doubt medical science will ever cotton on to it. But since we're all suffering we can at least attempt to work it out.
A former partner's father suffered dementia in his early days - 60's. He was a widower and had done very well for himself. He had a big house and plenty of money. But he was left alone since he only had one child and retired early.
When we used to go to see him, he would regularly be drinking alot of alcohol. But he was also suffering from dementia.
Was he eating correctly? Probably not. Was he drinking night and day? Yes, he was lonely but also probably terrified of what was happening to his mind.
Also - stress plays an enormous part in b12 depletion. And bereavement is one of lifes major stresses.
For a successful man to deteriorate like that was sad. We could pin it all on dementia. Or it could possibly be that stress, alcohol, and poor diet began to lower his B12 levels and this either caused a form of dementia or even eroded the stomach leading to Pernicious Anemia. Perhaps all of that impacted the gut and led to SIBO, stopping him absorbing any B12 from his diet.
We will never know since he passed a few years later.
What we do know is that Doctors do not factor b12, diet or Pernicious Anemia into their diagnosis of dementia. Alcoholics who enter rehab are often given B12 injections, since it's known that a lifetime of booze will deplete levels.
But it is so complex that I think we can never know for sure, unless someone shows up on the IFAB test or Parietal Cells.
More funding is needed to investigate the complexities of B12 deficiency beyond Pernicious Anemia. PA limits the conversation to just one route. But I don't think it's ever one route, I think it's always multi-factorial.
What we need is for someone wealthy to experience the lack of support for b12 sufferers in themselves or their families. And then try to fund proper investigative work into it, including the impact of diet. If an individual needs around 4-7mcg of B12 every day to avoid any chance of deficiency, that equates to meat twice a day, which the medical community is saying is too much to avoid high cholesterol, blood disease and heart problems.
So what are we to do?
Money to fund independent research is urgently required.
Absolutely, I agree 100%. I feel for sure that the stress and the alcohol and all kinds of factors came into play with David Cassidy and probably many other people. I know my situations extremely complicated and I don't really know why I have PA. I don't know if there's just one factor because at least four or five things could be the cause in my situation. But at least I know I have it now.
I think he drank at first because he was partying and enjoying himself and then he drank because he was suffering. And when he quit it was too late and he had all the symptoms of PA and so he still looked drunk all the time. Just a very sad vicious circle of circumstances. All these people with dementia suffering and nobody's even equating it to B12.
Fame can have a very corrosive impact on people. Especially in the music/entertainment industry, people can react badly to so much attention and in a negative way. Alcohol and drugs become coping mechanisms. So it's not that someone is 'an alcoholic' it's that they're in pain and reaching for alcohol to self-medicate. When it becomes an addiction that's when it's a danger zone.
Of course alcoholism remains life's biggest taboo. But it is not the alcohol that's the problem, it's a mental or spiritual malady that needs addressing.
Alcohol strips B12 as it's a toxin. So B12 escorts the alcohol out of the system, which depletes the stores. This needs replenishing in time. But alcohol also diminishes appetite and leads too poor diet aswell.
I suppose if David Cassidy had had a B12 test at some point that could have revealed more about his real diagnosis of dementia.
I know for my ex-partner's father, getting him into a care home at 60 was very hard on him and did not help him. But there really wasn't much choice. I don't think anyone checked his B12 during that time but like you say, it's very possible he could've had PA or an absorption problem.
Right. That is all so very very true. Any one of us could end up in that same place. Any one of us could have fallen through the cracks are entire life instead of finding the answer. It takes a lot of strength to go through your whole life wondering what's wrong with you and not being able to find out. And staying strong mentally through the whole thing while people think there's something very wrong with you for all the wrong reasons. Living with PA before it's diagnosed is an extremely difficult thing to do. You don't know what's happening to you and everybody thinks you're crazy. Which leads you to think you are. And David's case everybody was using him for money and nobody really cared about him and he slipped through every crack until he died of dementia from alcohol abuse and probably B12 deficiency.
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Maybe pernicious anemia 
